


These Are the Lives You Love to Lead

by Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Gen, aka TOTAL NONSENSE, background Lem/Emmanuel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 17:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11833707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep/pseuds/Soundingonlyatnightasyousleep
Summary: New kid Adaire meets some of football captain Hella's deeply weird friends.





	These Are the Lives You Love to Lead

**Author's Note:**

> This is a scene from a high school AU that I will never finish. Context is that Adaire is new and Hella has been assigned to show her around and it's at least a little bit gay.
> 
> Title is from Fall Out Boy's "Dance Dance," the quintessentially high school band. 
> 
> Warning for mentions of recreational drug use.

“Uh. Hey,” said Hella, slouching beside the doorway where she had apparently been lurking outside Adaire's English class. “It’s lunchtime, so we’re going to go eat lunch?” She didn’t seem to be carrying any books, or a backpack.

 

“Glad you could make it,” said Adaire, injecting as much sincerity as she could halfway through as she realized how sarcastic her words sounded. Hella kind of scrunched her face up, but she visibly went for leading them down the hall instead. 

 

“Here’s the cafeteria.” Hella pointed at the very apparent doors leaking a roar of conversation and clattering trays, and grabbed Adaire’s elbow to steer her in. 

 

Almost without noticing, Adaire had been herded through the line and given a trayful of lunch. Typical fare. She hadn’t wanted to bring her own lunch though, in case it would make her stand out too much. In case people could discern from an arrangement of food where she came from every day. 

 

Hella nudged her out of her thoughts and toward a round table in the corner.  “This is Lem and Fero.” Hella jerked her chin toward an absolutely tiny guy flicking a fidget spinner and a tall, tawny-skinned dude wearing what looked like a fishing vest. She gave no indication of which one was which. Neither did Lem-and-Fero, who kept arguing with each other without looking up. Something about horses, which wasn’t a half bad argument topic. Adaire gave them what she was sure was a cool nod. Surprisingly weird looking guys for a co-captain of the football team to hang out with.

 

Hella had procured a Capri Sun from somewhere and was sipping it, seemingly having no interest in talking to her friends. Adaire watched the oddly delicate way her fingers curled around the foil. Hella caught her eye, smiled awkwardly, and silently dumped her carton of milk onto Adaire’s tray. Well, she had to drink it now. 

 

“Hey, hey Devar!” suddenly shout-whispered the tall either-Lem-or-Fero. He waved frantically at a guy wearing an eye-searing shirt who instantly looked exhausted when he saw who had said his name. “Come here!”

 

“Lem fucking King.” Up close, Adaire could see that presumably-Devar had a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses nestled in his tight curls even though he was also wearing a wire-rimmed pair of normal glasses he was exasperatedly pushing up his nose. “Man, I told you that last time was the  _ last time _ .”  

 

“Emmanuel said that his brownies turned out really well though!” Apparently-Lem blinked piteously up at Devar, even though he was so huge that his sitting height was near Devar’s standing height. Devar looked unimpressed.

 

“He also said to stop giving him weed at school,” Fero chimed in. “That part went on way longer.” 

 

Adaire snorted, louder than she’d meant to. Hella looked questioningly down at her. 

 

“I’m no snitch,” Adaire quietly assured her, “Even if you guys do have a shit operation.” If anything, both Lem and Fero seemed like they could stand to smoke more often. Maybe that was the key to making Lem’s guy like him. She noted it down to pursue in a few weeks if she was still hanging around and needed to get rid of him quickly or something. 

 

“That’s not…” Hella was still staring, and Adaire realized that she had placed her hand on Hella’s well-muscled forearm in a gentle pat while she had been speaking. She drew her hand away and smirked confidently to cover it up.

 

“Okay, come on, I promise I won’t ask you again,” Lem continued to wheedle. “Next time I’ll just...lend him a book. Or I’ll write him a poem! Yeah! Just do me this favor and I’ll owe you…”

 

“You already owe me. Said you’d read my novel and never fucking did,” muttered Devar, rubbing at his eyes. “Ugh...fine, but only because I still feel bad about Ephrim, not because of your dumb ass.” He fished a baggie out of his backpack and handed it to Lem, who took it with a surprisingly smooth motion, and accepted his cash in return. Devar then popped his sunglasses down over his real glasses and shuffled off. Adaire admittedly liked his style, even if he did sell weed to an unbelievably spacey dude at school. 

 

“Now I’ll just--Emmanuel!” shouted Lem. His voice carried through the din of the room unfortunately well. The other two immediately both elbowed him viciously. Adaire propped her chin on her hands to watch. So many things just happened around these people, she guessed. “I wasn’t going to give him it now, I’m just--” The tiny guy stood on the bench to cover his mouth. 

 

Across the cafeteria, a guy who had an impressive amount of stubble for a high schooler craned his neck to peer at them. A soppy smile instantly bloomed on Lem’s face, visible even behind Fero’s insistently pressing fingers. Sitting behind the object of Lem’s affections, an absolutely stunning dark-skinned girl with an intricate crown of braids cocked her head amusedly at them in a graceful, cinematic motion. Hella ducked. 

 

Adaire popped her head down under the table next to Hella, who honestly was tall enough that ducking probably wouldn’t help her conspicuousness. “Who’s that?” she drawled. 

 

“It’s Lem’s stupid not-boyfriend Emmanuel. Don’t worry about it, it’s stupid,” Hella grimaced. At eye level, Adaire could see Lem’s torso twisting free of Fero’s hold, some of the weird keychain things on his vest jingling. 

 

“No, I mean who’s the chick? Y’know, with the braids? Who’s making us do the ostrich impression?” Adaire pressed. Lem’s feet trotted away from the table, a disappointed cry rising from Fero that quickly cut off into a mutter.

 

“ _ You _ can just sit up if you want,” huffed Hella, showing no sign of wanting to conduct this conversation with her head not resting on her knees herself. Adaire stayed. She could appreciate commitment to a bit. And besides, she preferred to see faces while she grilled people. 

 

“Eugh. Fine,” Hella said. “She’s Adelaide Triste and I just really don’t want her to see me, okay?” She kept the same pull of her lip back in a snarl, the same air of vague bemusement she had worn all day, but she seemed deflated all of a sudden. 

 

“Okay,” Adaire said after a moment. Knowing when to pull back when talking to people was important too, after all. She chanced a reassuring nudge of her knee against Hella’s. 

 

“HA!” Fero shouted, popping his head under the table next to them. His fidget spinner was back in his hands. “Crushes suck, and so do exes, and I’m never going to have either, so there.” 

 

“Eugh,” Hella said again. She didn’t move her knee from where it was pressed up against Adaire’s for the rest of the lunch period though. 

**Author's Note:**

> Other things I had planned:
> 
> -Samol is the principal, and he is wearing an entire white three-piece seersucker suit.
> 
> -Hadrian is, of course, the other football captain, hulking and earnest. Adaire despises him on sight.
> 
> -Ephrim is the terrifying head cheerleader. 
> 
> -Adaire's first introduction to Throndir is as the stocky kid who effortlessly vaults up a tree in gym class to retrieve a Frisbee. It's early in the morning and it's her first class and she doesn't have gym clothes so she just blearily squints through the fog at him while his enormous service dog Kodiak goes "BOOF" from where he's sitting by her on the bench, wondering if she's fucking dreaming. Though she pegs him as also on the football team when Hella seems to know him, he's actually another cheerleader.
> 
> -Lem is in the marching band. He still plays the violin. Devar is in the color guard, reluctantly badgered into it by Lem. He once accidentally threw a flag with great force and at the exact right angle to hit Ephrim in the throat and knock him off the top of the pyramid.


End file.
